


heracles

by Noctvms



Category: Code Geass
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, Retelling, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 10:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20795321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noctvms/pseuds/Noctvms
Summary: A short retelling of Code Geass's storyline in which pain is shared among soulmates."Suzaku scoffed as he looked on as Lelouch's thumb produced blood after being cut.His own thumb was starting to throb with a familiar pain."Is the universe mocking us or something?!" he bit out while laughing.A hollow, humorless laugh that seemed to carry across the entirety of the palace."





	heracles

**Author's Note:**

> Hi hello I'm back with another AU fic. This one's a bit shorter  
"When will you stop just rewriting the Code Geass storyline with AUs you like???" you ask.  
"Will you ever write your own story???" you wonder  
I have no clue but for now take this.
> 
> Also if you havent, check out my other story "eosphorus" which is basically a code geass retelling but everyone has wings. go, fetch.

Soulmates share pain.  
The idea had been as old as time.  
When Eve had swallowed the sinful fruit Adam had felt a poisonous rupture at the back of his throat. And that’s how soulmates came to exist.  
Only at the age of 17 would the connection be fully formed, there would be rare occurrences of it already being stable enough for certain signals to be transmitted. A broken rib, a punch to the face, your soulmate, too, might yelp in pain.  
A physical mark would never be shown, only the pain. Suzaku had been glad for this fact as it made sure his soulmate would not be burdened by the countless bruises, scratches and marks that littered his body. Unfortunately, they would be burdened by the pain.  
As he idly stared up at his room’s ceiling his mind wandered back to when Euphy had ceremonially taken a small knife, cut open her finger and bit her lip in slight pain. Suzaku waited for the pain to arrive. It never did.  
Disappointment had coursed through his veins for the rest of the day; it would’ve been perfect, him and Euphy, perfect soulmates. 

Only one physical mark would ever remain. A fatal wound will be delivered onto one’s soulmate, also. Suzaku knew that when Zero shot Euphemia straight through her forehead he wasn’t only killing her, he was also condemning her, laughing at her, by making her soulmate bear an ugly wound in the middle of their forehead forever. After the incident Suzaku remembers longingly staring into the mirror, looking at the middle of his forehead. He didn’t know exactly why but for some reason he had taken a fancy to covering that part of his forehead, despite no disfigurement or discoloration being there.  
He remembers vividly thinking ‘fuck soulmates, fuck fate, it can go to hell,’ because if it wasn’t Euphy, then what was the point even? 

He got a slight jab of pain in his left leg the next day. Seemingly as if his soulmate was reprimanding him by saying ‘Hey! I’m still here!’. It felt like empty hope. But hope nonetheless, because somewhere out there, there was someone that was supposed to be perfect for him in every way. His father and mother had been soulmates. He remembered after she’d died from cancer that his father had gotten slight discolorations on his skin, blemishes nearly. The doctors said it happened quite regularly to people whose soulmates had died of cancer, a fatal wound passed on to them. His father wore it with pride. Suzaku could only morbidly chuckle at the fact that his mother in heaven was most likely walking around with a hole in her torso, courtesy of him, of course. 

When Suzaku had found out that Lelouch was his soulmate he was appalled. He had had a figment of an idea. When he’d shot Zero- point blank on his mask -he felt an incredible surge of pain flowing through him to his forehead. When he’d held Lelouch in a chokehold on the ground in front of his father his lungs begged him for air and his back felt as if it was being crushed. Maybe Julius Kingsley had been the worst due to the man’s random outburst of self inflicted pain making it quite difficult for Suzaku to confidently pilot a Knightmare, but he made do. Fighting with Zero became a pain; in decisive battles he’d suddenly feel excruciating pain in his left arm, a limb relatively important when piloting an 18-foot tall death machine. Turned out Lelouch, that moron, had jammed a knife right through his arm while disguised as Zero. Because that’d make them win, yeah. Of course the student persona of Lelouch would have a ‘good enough’ excuse at the ready at any time. Because, obviously, Suzaku believed Lelouch when he told him how Shirley had accidentally activated a smoke machine while cooking and Rivalz had stuck a knife through his arm (all things considered, it wasn’t even that impossible).  
Of course the reveal that Lelouch had been Zero had also brought on the realization that Zero’s- or Lelouch’s- ‘live’ Geass had merely existed to serve his own agenda. After all, he couldn’t inflict any major bruises or marks on himself without activating it to some degree.  
Teaming up with Lelouch had been, soulmate wise, nice. They couldn’t hurt one another anymore without actively hurting an ‘ally’ as they were calling each other now. It was also during this time that they finally ceremoniously confirmed it: Lelouch had taken a small pocket knife and cut his finger, Suzaku immediately felt the familiar pain of a cut on his finger as he instinctively brought it to his mouth to soothe. Suzaku had known of course, Lelouch told the other that he had had an inkling of an idea. Suzaku had scoffed at that and asked whether the self-mutilation his soulmate had done while he’d been piloting the Lancelot had been a coincidence. Truthfully, he’d ran out of yells to throw at the opposing man as he didn’t even look shameful for being caught on his lie.  
Suzaku proceeded to ask whether the ‘live’ Geass had been given purely out of self-interest. Lelouch told Suzaku the answer to that was up to him and how he decided to view him.

Even after a year Suzaku has yet to make that decision.

Soulmates were a clear-cut matter… it was a romantic matter. Suzaku had seen Gino and Anya, how they fit perfectly together. He’d seen his parents, Rivalz and Milly. Platonic soulmates, hateful soulmates, were unheard of. Suzaku didn’t enjoy the fact that ‘exception’ had always been plastered over him, Lelouch seemed to bask in it, as opposed to him. The universe taunted him as it put the two of them for months in the same palace. It was a palpable bond that could be felt between them: an invisible string that seemed to always lead one of them to the other. It was… bizarre to spend time with someone you despised with every rational fiber of your being but one that your instinct told you to cherish, to protect, to get closer to. They rarely spoke of it, aside from the rare occasions that either of them would get a particularly painful jab. Such as the time when Suzaku suddenly felt his entire body mentally collapsing on him while it was still perfectly intact physically. He’d rushed to the Emperor’s chambers where he’d found Lelouch drenched in sweat laying on the ground. They’d never spoken of that incident after it’d occurred. 

Talks about Zero Requiem were weird. C.C. would sit on one side of the couch, supposedly bored, while Lelouch would usually be either pacing around the room or inspecting sultry matters littering all chambers of the palace. Suzaku would normally be either leaning against the door or the wall next to said door to escape from those horrid people and those horrid talks as soon as the situation allowed him to. He could still vividly recall the first subject to be brought up: “Alright, first things first… Suzaku… we need to go over details.”  
He’d scoffed: “Details? What is there to talk about, I thought I got free reign over all what follows after my death, aside from-”  
“He was referring to your soulbond,” C.C. spoke coldly.  
In all fairness, that reply had not been quite self-explanatory at the time: “Is there a fear I cannot handle some transmitted pain?”  
Lelouch sighed: “No, Suzaku, that’s not it. This-,” he bit his lip, “this will be a fatal wound. I don’t want you to bear- Maybe we should, just, simply discuss the minutiae that come with a task such as this one. You could inject the sword with some sort of poison that doesn’t leave any soul traces. It would also suit the headlines well. A Zero which even cares about the Demon Emperor’s soulmate.”  
The words seemingly floated around Suzaku as Lelouch spoke: they’d discussed Zero Requiem yet never… in such detail. It made it feel real.  
Without pausing, Lelouch continued, deliberating about various methods that would cause for Suzaku to either get no traces left behind on his body or small, minor ones. C.C. would rarely chime in.  
“Lelouch,” Suzaku’s own deep voice seemed to cut through the room, “what if I decide to just keep it simple and do it with a normal sword, a normal cut?”  
Lelouch made a sound of belittlement and shook his head: “And what, end up with a hunched over, pained Zero who is clutching the same spot as the Emperor? Listen, Suzaku, that will happen whatever we do so maybe, at least, having nothing that could actually prove that the new Zero and the old Demon Emperor were soulbonded would be quite wonderful.”  
Suzaku scowled: “I will never hunch over in pain for you. I could bear it.”  
“Oh is that so? Do tell, have I ever been murdered in the past, and you are reminiscing about this instance and remembering about how much it did not affect you? Because in all honesty Suzaku, I do not recall.”  
“Do as you promised and give me free reign.”  
“No.”  
Of course C.C. would interfere before Suzaku even had the chance to rough Lelouch up, as he’d predicted. She shot Suzaku an angry look and motioned for Lelouch to sit down.  
After a continuation of the original talk that went nowhere Lelouch dismissed both of them and seemingly frustrated closed the door behind the two of them.  
Suzaku was about to simply retreat to his chamber when C.C. spoke: “You know… Suzaku, your soulmate dying, it… it hurts.”  
A soft, hollow, humorless laugh escaped his throat and he turned around to face her: “I doubt it quite severely, witch,” he’d taken quite a liking to Lelouch’s nickname for her. Staring at her look of disapproval he suspected that she did not.  
“I’m serious, Suzaku. It hurts. Lelouch is right to worry. Once you… once you stick that sword through him there won’t be a soulbond transmittance happening, it’ll all be directly overflowing you. Everything you’ve felt until now has been a transmittance, an imitation of what he was feeling. That wound, it’ll be the real deal.”  
Just as Suzaku was prepared to jump to retaliation she fixed him with her glare: “It will hurt, Suzaku.”  
It was a mere hour later that Suzaku entered Lelouch’s bureau and without the other man even turning around they rediscussed the matter. Very little wondermaking had to be involved for it to not turn out in a one-sided screaming match, simply a conversation with C.C. 

It was with a regretful melancholy that Suzaku thought back to Zero Requiem. He’d underestimated the pain. At first, once the sword had just penetrated skin he could feel a dull ache starting to form in his abdomen but when he pushed further, thoroughly splicing the Emperor’s body he felt it. It was as if a connection was being severed by engrossing him with so much hurt at once that it couldn’t continue to exist. When C.C. had spoken to him about not being able to keep his composure, as he’d perform his task, she had certainly not been joking. It had been excruciating. Suzaku honest to god barely remembered anything about the following minutes as the pain had enveloped him. It had been with his last powers that Suzaku had taken the sword out of Lelouch and watched him slide down towards Nunnally. He had to use every fiber of strength and perseverance left in his body as to not hunch down and clutch his stomach. It had not only been physical pain but also emotional pain as he felt the instinctual, soulbonded part of his brain crying out in agony. It screamed and yelled at him in a fearful anguish. He’d penetrated Lelouch’s stomach. Stupid him. Lelouch had advised him to take his spleen: deadly, yet relatively not that painful. He felt as if he could throw up at any second. As the cheers around him closed in his sense of lucidity continued to wane: it was torture, his entire abdomen. It seemed as if all of his blood vessels were continuously on fire as his heart was palpitating to pump blood to a non-existent wound. Everyone needed to shut up, every single person around him needed to stop chanting his name because the pain was too much to bear for an actor keeping up appearance.

In all honesty, Suzaku barely remembered how he’d not collapsed right then and there, yet he’d continued to play his part for the following ten minutes. Only to then right after succumb to the agony and fall down in a backward alley of Tokyo. 

And that is how Suzaku came to sit in Pendragon’s palace, after having just been assisted by Nunnally’s aides while wearing his Zero costume as he idly looked in the mirror, tracing the giant vertical gash which begrimed his stomach. 

The gash had always been enough for Nunnally. She’d asked Zero whether he was Suzaku. The gash was Suzaku’s promise to Lelouch: Suzaku lived no longer. He dutifully looked her right in the eyes as he steadfastly spoke: “No.”  
She’d nodded. Directed her aides to escort both of them to her bedchamber where she’d seated him.  
She’d ordered him to undress, Suzaku had emotionlessly reminded her of the mask. She’d smiled, absent-mindedly disregarded it and explained that it would not be necessary to take off.  
As Suzaku removed his cape she’d looked on. As it continued for the gloves to the vest to the cravat.  
“What are you thinking of achieving by this?”  
“You… you know why I am asking you to do this.”  
It had been with a sigh that he continued: “If your goal is to discredit that I am not Suzaku Kururugi, late Emperor Lelouch’s knight, my body is not a tool which I would advise to use to do so.”  
She shook her head and motioned for him to continue: “It is an entirely other matter which I would like to see for myself.”  
And it had been wordlessly that Suzaku inched his shirt over his torso, not removing it, as it hadn’t been necessary. The gash was glaringly obvious as it stared at Nunnally. They both knew what it meant: she’d spent such a long time staring at Lelouch’s wounds it would have surprised Suzaku more had she not recognized it. The room was still enveloped in silence as Nunnally began to cry. What started as sobs grew to full on bawling as Suzaku chose to get dressed again. It was with only sobs filling the room that Suzaku fixed his cape back onto him and bid her majesty goodbye. 

Suzaku doubted that it was possible but it seemed as if she had chosen to treat him with even more kindness after the incident. Only a few mere days had passed before she had softly asked him aside and said in a whispered voice that she was very… happy that her brother had at least found peace at the hands of his soulmate.

Living without a soulmate was weird. Suzaku could vividly recall back when he was ten that he’d felt a sudden ache in his back; Lelouch had explained that his father’s guards had pushed him down the palace’s stairs after his defiance of him. Lelouch afterwards asked him why, back when he had been seven years old, he’d felt a sudden agony in his left leg. Suzaku had coldly replied he’d fallen of off his bike and broken his leg. He chose to omit the fact that he’d fallen due to his father abandoning certain parental duties, such as watching over him, after the death of his mother. From the look Lelouch, the man who he’d spent four years of his childhood with, shot him, he could guess he already knew that precise fact.  
Now all of that… was gone.  
No more sudden cuts on his fingers when dinner announced itself, no more back pain due to Lelouch sleeping hunched over on a small high school desk, hell, a small part of him even longed for the familiar pain he’d feel in his eyes due to Lelouch’s shitty habit of forgetting to properly clean out his contact lenses. He’d even forcefully taken Lelouch aside for that last one, pushing him harshly into a wall while spelling out for him that he didn’t particularly enjoy going to bed with his eyes tearing.  
He avoided any and all conversations about soulmates with Lelouch; it made it all the more real. Complaining about someone while that person in question hadn’t even as much as tacitly come close to you felt akin to insanity. Yet he also felt so lonely without it. Yes, the universe had made a decision for you without even as much as choosing to check with you whether that decision would be accepted but it was a choice that battled the ever consuming loneliness humanity seemed to acquire when left to its own devices.  
So this is how Euphemia’s soulmate has been living for the last year, huh?  
Or maybe not, maybe they’d died.

Suzaku had wondered about the entire soulmate thing.  
The universe had decided that he and Lelouch were the perfect match. A match made not in heaven, not even by a god, just simply… how it was always supposed to be.  
He’d rejected it for a while, truly. Just after Lelouch’s death the mere notion of soulmates could cause him to gag, Lelouch had not been his soulmate.  
Yet a glaring gash was right around the corner ready to disprove that.  
And Suzaku could only thank himself when he recalled that faithful moment where he chose not to inject any poison or powder into his sword but rather make a clean cut as he often felt as if the gash was the only thing grounding him in reality.  
They had been soulmates.

And it had been wonderful. As only a soulmate should carry out their lover’s last wish.


End file.
